Game 3, Rangers at Mariners
Jason Jennings v Carlos Silva
I’ve said before we’d learn a lot about this year’s Mariners in the first month or so, and here’s two of the big questions: is Carlos Silva the pitch-to-contact pitcher we’ve seen in his career, or is he the middle-rotation pillar of support the M’s think they signed? And will the M’s defensive holes hobble him?
Fun comparison:
Jennings: lifetime big groundball pitcher (1.38 G/F), projections ran ~6K/9, 3.75 BB/9, 1 HR/9
Silva: even bigger groundball pitcher (1.55 G/F), projections run ~4K/9, 2 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9
Jennings signed for one year, $4m.
Lineups when we get them. Wait, no… I’m going to go out on a limb here and post them before I see them. Let’s see how far off they are.
Rangers
2B-R Kinsler
SS-R Young
CF-L Hamilton
3B-L Blalock
DH-B Bradley
RF-L Catalanotto
LF-L Murphy
C-R Laird
1B-L Broussard
Mariners
CF-L Ichiro!
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
3B-R Beltre
RF-L Wilkerson
DH-B Vidro
C-R Johjima
SS-R Betancourt
I promise not to try to upgrade the site during the game.
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193 Responses to “Game 3, Rangers at Mariners”
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msb: The real question is whether Edgar used to wear ankle weights on the field… because if EDGAR did it…
well, at least he did know that Halladay was pretty good.
Um. What’s the deal with the strike zones so far this season?
Ankle weights are derided by most sport medicine experts. Not only have they’ve been proven not to work but they have also been linked with injuries. It’s a no no.
OppositeField – Let’s hope it’s just this crew. But, I’m with you.
Nothing but lefties coming up (including a few with huge platoon splits), and McLaren’s really going to give the ball to Batista instead of Rowland-Smith to protect a 3 run lead?
The guy is a complete slave to experience.
What’s the opinion of the faithful .. Batista pitches in save situation or not?
When Guardado went down, the M’s went to using a guy without the proven closer label and found Putz. So now, faced again with an injured starter who might be out for a couple weeks or months, they’re going to use… the only other guy on the staff with a proven closer label.
Learn! Leaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrnnn!
Sims feels bad for Richie. Awww. I do too. His kids will starve.
They start booing Sexson already? Give that guy a break.
[SIMS! ONE M! SIMS!]
Experience doesn’t count if you have been doing it wrong all along.
someone on the radio was talking about Torre having Pettitte ready out of the bullpen last year on his throw days– maybe this is a Mel suggestion
…except that Batista blew as a closer.
Johnny Mac makes me want to punch myself in the face.
McLaren is a microcosm of baseball -which values “experience” and tradition over observable facts and scientific discipline. I love the game but it’s not run by rocket scientists.
[stop]
Due up in the 9th: Hamilton (L, big platoon split), Blalock (L, big platoon split), Bradley (switch hitter), Catalanatto (L, big platoon split), and Murphy (L) due up.
Seriously, how enslaved do you have to be to labels and experience to go with the right-hander who struggles against left-handed hitters here?
Roberto Hernandez has 326 career saves. Perhaps we could pick him up until JJ returns. He’s proven.
And here comes Batista.
This is going to be interesting.
Shockingly, Sean Green struggling to throw strikes against a lefty. Who could have possibly foreseen this event?
This is an astounding lack of understanding of baseball that McLaren is showing off right here.
There is absolutely no question about it.
I quote the Ranger FOX announcers (as heard here in my hotel room in Arkansas):
“Rangers have lefties coming up here in Blalock, Catalanatto, and Murphy. So the Mariners turn to the right-handed and home-run prone Miguel Batista.”
You’re not alone on this one, Dave…
Batistia has always gotten destroyed by lefties, I sense lots of yelling and breaking things in my immediate future.
George, we miss you…
FWIW, Batista in 2005– 31 SV, 8 BS.
And, for the first time this year, Adam Jones would have caught that.
Batista steps in for both JJ and Sexson.
(thirty Batista blown-saves later)
“But it worked on the third game! I’ve got to keep trying.” – McLaren
Krueger looks old in HD.
speaking of the umps this year, something else to look forward to — Ed Montague on tossing Bowa yesterday for being out of the coaches box:
“We got a memo and an edict, and they’re adamant about the box and stuff. Don’t go up in front of the box toward home plate, and don’t get any closer to the foul lines. I told Bo in the bottom of the fifth, because he got up close. And that’s what caught my eye. And I just told him, ‘Bo, you got the memo, we got the memo, and you’ve got to stay back.’ I went over and told Joe in-between innings what I told Bo. And Bo just said, ‘I’m going to do it the way I’ve always been doing it.’I said, ‘Bo, if you go up, I’m going to have to run you.’ And he said, ‘Do what you’ve got to do, and it is what it is.’ When he got up in front of it again, I said, ‘Bo, I told you once, now get back in the box.’ He argued it, and finally I said, ‘You’re gone.'”
McLaren just hit on 16 with the dealer showing a 5.
…and he drew a 4.
[violation of button terms]
So we’re 3 games into the season and after seeing Mac make some bonehead questionable decisions I have but one question.
Is it safe to say that if the M’s are successful this year it would be a result of just plain dumb luck on Mac’s part?
@176
Krueger is old, HD just proves it. He is a walking cliche, and he can’t even get the names right.
I hate to say it, but I love it when you guys are wrong. Nice showing for the save, however I will agree that it was an extremely STUPID move. Should I reference Les Miles and LSU tossing the last second touchdown when he could have gone for the field goal to win over Auburn? Sometimes coaching is shear lunacy, and nobody will ever be able to explain it.
They only ridicule you if you’re the goat….
Uhh, what exactly were we wrong about? That going after that part of the line-up with Green/Batista didn’t make any sense?
With a 3 run lead in the 9th, the M’s were approximately 93% favorites to win regardless of which pitcher they brought in there. No one was predicting that Batista was going to blow the save and they’d lose the game – we were simply stating that it was an illogical, inefficient move born out of a slavery to experience that simply isn’t good baseball strategy.
They’d have been better off going to Ryan Rowland-Smith in that situation. If that situation occurs again, and they again go with the experienced RHP, I’ll kill McLaren for it again. It’s a stupid move.
Luckily, the chance of the Mariners blowing it in that situation were extremely low, no matter who was on the mound. The criticism here comes from none of us wanting to see that kind of decision made when there’s a good chance at blowing the lead.
With a three run lead it is a nice time to rest the arms…they have been worked fairly hard lately. It would have been a dicier move with a slimmer lead…..
Are we gonna move Baek to the rotation and keep Batista in the pen? Not a terrible way to go, Baek is fairly close to Batista as a starter I would think.
186, I’m with you. Sometimes you throw conventional wisdom out the window. Like last night, Putz wasn’t ready, he started warming up later than usual, and the “go with the closer in the 9th” wisdom, didn’t work.
I would like to see Mac alter the starting lineup though, there is no reason why Sexson should stay at #4, that is just wrong
ah, the perils of waiting around to hear Drayer on the postgame show.
you get to hear callers say things like “I’m worried about our right-fielder. He has no enthusism. Why are Morse and Willie sitting on the bench instead of playing in right?”
Well, you could make a case for Bloomquist as a defensive sub in RF in late innnings with a sizable lead. Not for “enthusiasm” but just based on watching Wilkerson trundle out to the wall on those deep hits. Of course, that assumes you didn’t have an even more glaring need for a defensive sub in LF….
The problem with using Batista in that situation and having it work is that it will just reinforce the faulty decision-making. It’s exactly what doomed the space shuttle Columbia. “Well, crap has fallen off the tank on every launch and we’ve never lost a shuttle to it, therefore having crap fall off the tank on launch is completely safe.” If you don’t understand the problem, you don’t know if your decision-making is sound or you’ve just been lucky (so far).